Romney could seal deal in Dixie

RICHLAND, Miss. — In a topsy-turvy GOP primary, where the unexpected has been the norm, such a final plot twist may be altogether fitting: The Mormon Yankee who thinks cheese grits are a revelation effectively seals the nomination in Alabama and Mississippi.

Mitt Romney has a shot to win both states — polls show him leading or effectively tied in each. But even if the former Massachusetts governor doesn’t take them outright, the apparent resurgence of Newt Gingrich in the Deep South has once again muddled the primary-within-a-primary so that Rick Santorum is going to be denied his wish to get a clean shot at the front-runner.

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It’s Gingrich, his candidacy on life support after carrying only his home state among the 10 Super Tuesday states, who is combining regional appeal, his characteristic pugnacity and an aggressive push on gas prices to give Romney the stiffest competition in Mississippi and Alabama.

More important, he’s depriving Santorum of market dominance when it comes to the anybody-but-Mitt crowd and presenting Romney with an opportunity to answer critics who say he can’t appeal to the beating heart of the conservative movement and in the epicenter of the resistance to President Barack Obama.

“I think it’s over if he wins here,” said Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant of Romney after a Monday rally with comedian Jeff Foxworthy at a trucking company outside Jackson. “At that point how do you go and say, ‘I’m the most conservative candidate’ if you can’t win the most conservative state in the country?”

Bryant is a Romney backer, but such sentiment isn’t difficult to pick up across the two deep red states. If one of the two conservative alternatives can’t decisively defeat the establishment favorite in Mississippi and Alabama, which have veered even more sharply to the right in the Obama era, it’s difficult to imagine either of them constructing an electoral firewall that can halt Romney’s march to Tampa.

“If Newt wins them, he’s still in the race but he doesn’t eliminate Santorum,” said Alabama GOP Chairman Bill Armistead, explaining the two most likely outcomes following a candidate forum at the historic Alabama Theater in Birmingham Monday night. “If [Romney] wins both of them, he’d be very hard to beat — he’ll be on track at that point.”

So, much like the end-game of the college football season, there is more than one scenario here in pigskin-crazy SEC country under which Romney can reach his own equivalent of the BCS title game: He can win out on Tuesday or get some help from the rival of his rival.

Competitive college football is an annual rite of fall here, at least on the Alabama side of the state line, but a pivotal spring primary is something entirely new for Republicans in these parts.

Conversations with party veterans in the two states elicit something close to glee that they are playing such a crucial role in a hotly contested primary at a moment when the GOP has reached its historical zenith in Jackson and Montgomery.